A cycle rack of the aforementioned is illustrated in FIG. 1, with the cycle rack including a ball 1 of a towing hitch of an automobile. The two protruding arms 2A and 3A for carrying at least one bicycle or for supporting skis vertically are located on the upper portion of the V-shaped branches 3 and 4. The lower ends of the skis are supported by a basket shaped supporting means (not shown) attached to the lower portion of the cycle rack.
This type of cycle rack has the disadvantage that it may be necessary to manufacture and market more than just one size of the cycle rack for practical reasons. This disadvantage is not caused by various sizes of bicycles or skis, but is caused by the size of the ball hitch. The dimensions of the ball should comply with a world-wide-accepted, one-size-standard ball hitch which includes a minimum and maximum dimensional tolerance resulting from manufacturing deviations when producing the ball. Nevertheless, the tolerance of the ball hitch is not sufficiently strictly observed everywhere although the ball size is world-wide-accepted.
Additionally, a certain amount of wear of the ball also must be taken into account.